


law versus art

by akc



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Banter, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Roommates, a lot of conversations about laundry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 02:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17378132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akc/pseuds/akc
Summary: “More lettuce, I see,” Akechi says, still peering.“Yeah.” Akira swallows. “Are you sure you’re fine? Did something good happen?”“Oh, no, nothing good ever happens to me,” Akechi says conversationally, and Akira can’t tell whether or not he’s joking.





	law versus art

**Author's Note:**

> aka akira and akechi are randomly assigned as roommates and lots of stuff happens.  
> i made this way longer than i intended to

**MARCH**

“You’re lucky you got a double,” Ann says, hands on her hips, looking around the kitchen. “I have to share my dorm with six people. _Six!_ I didn’t even know that was something that could happen.”

Akira hoists a large cardboard box from the floor and sets it on the table in the center of the kitchen. It makes various types of clanking noises as he handles it. “I’m lucky I got a dorm at all, considering the amount of people that go here,” he says, taking out a mug. The handle seems to have been glued back multiple times. “Plus, at least you know two of the people you’re with.”

“I guess. You just get so much more space with a double.” She gestures towards the general kitchen area, which is in fact quite large for two people.

Akira’s dorm is located on the third floor and consists of an entrance room (graciously equipped with a round carpet), a kitchen (which is straight back), a bathroom (which is oddly linked to the kitchen), and two bedrooms opposite one another, each accessible through the entrance.

Looking at it now, it is somewhat lucky that he got a double.

“Do you know his name?” Ann asks, putting away some plates. She organizes them both by size as well as functionality, which is thoughtful, but Akira’s sure it won’t last that way.

“Do I know whose name?” he asks.

Ann ceases her plate-sorting and stares. “Your roommate’s name, Akira.”

“Oh!” Akira laughs. “No. Well, it was mentioned on the papers they gave me, but I don’t remember what it was.”

He collects all of the cardboard boxes strewn around the room and sets them by the front door, strategically leaning them against the wall in a strange way so they don’t fall over.

It’s not that Akira doesn’t _care_ about his roommate. Or, well—they haven’t met yet, so he supposes he doesn’t have a particular reason to care about him as he hasn’t been able to confirm his existence yet. Either way, there are bigger things he feels he could be worrying about.

Still. If Akira’s roommate knows _his_ name and Akira doesn’t know his, it’s going to make him look like an asshole.

“Don’t you think you sh…” Ann trails off as Akira moves to open the door to the-roommate’s-room. “What are you doing?”

“I’m finding out his name,” Akira says simply.

“It’s—you shouldn’t snoop through people’s things! It’s like breaking and entering!”

Akira waves his hand at Ann, though she probably can’t see him from where he’s standing.

He looks around the room. The bedsheets are white and smoothed out to a concerning degree and even have hospital corners on the ends. There are no photos or posters on the walls, no photos of family or friends either. The only remotely personal thing is a crumpled drawing of a dog sitting on the nightstand. Everything else is organized neatly in its place. On top of the desk are a bunch of textbooks, with the first one reading _Calculus: for Business, Economics, Life Sciences, and Social Sciences._

Akira wrinkles his nose.

This room is… almost unbearably void of personality. In fact, it is so void and blank that it has created a new type of personality.

Akira opens up a planner that’s also on the desk to its first page.

_This Planner Belongs to: Akechi Goro._

Well, there.

He leaves this Akechi Goro’s room, shutting the door gently. Ann stands next to the boxes, arms folded across her chest. She’s giving Akira a _look._

“I found out his name,” he says cautiously.

“That’s great,” she says, but the look persists.

“Don’t you want to know what it is?” Akira asks, touching the ends of his hair.

“Actually, I checked outside, and there’s a name plaque next to the door, so I already know.” Pause. “Don’t go through people’s stuff!”

It’s not like there was much to go through. “It’s not like there was much to go through,” Akira says. “He seems boring. And if he isn’t boring, then he must have a lot of secrets.”

“You aren’t going to know until you meet him,” Ann mumbles. She lifts the boxes by the door and heads into Akira’s room to shove them away into the closet.

Akira walks back into the kitchen and stares. Everything in here is so neutral. Grey walls, grey tile floors (which, for reference, match the bathroom’s floors), grey refrigerator and grey countertops. The table is wooden, at least, but it’s so _not_ grey that it sticks out like a sore thumb.

He runs his finger on the table and looks at it. No dust, which is good—he was worried he would have to spend a long time cleaning, but so far this hasn’t been the case.

There’s a knock at the front door and Akira forgets about the no-dust.

“I got it!” Ann says, appearing very suddenly. She opens the door and Akira lets out an exhale he didn’t know was there upon discovering that it’s only Ryuji.

“I got your groceries,” he says, setting bags upon bags of food on the table. “I got some extra stuff, too, ‘cause I didn’t know if you might need it or not.”

“I see that,” Akira deadpans, and pulls out three heads of lettuce.

They put the groceries away. It’s a good thing Ryuji bought extra things because this Akechi hasn’t bought anything at all, which Akira thought was strange. In fact, he hadn’t even put any plates or cups or anything away. Perhaps they were still tucked away in his room.

“So,” Ryuji says, hitting his fist against the fridge, scattering Akira’s train of thought. “Want dinner?”

—

They have dinner. They make gyudon, to be specific, and use an appropriate amount of the ingredients Ryuji had bought. There are only two chairs for the little kitchen table, so Akira sits on the countertop and eats from there. They talk about school and mourn over having to wake up early again.

Akira debates setting aside a portion for Akechi but he isn’t sure whether or not that would be weird, and so he doesn’t. As he washes the dishes and puts them in their respective cabinets and drawers, he dwells on this decision, regrets it slightly. Giving him dinner would have been a good icebreaker.

He’s putting away one last spoon when there’s the very distinct sound of a door opening.

Akira immediately flattens his hair, smooths out his shirt and pants as well, even though there’s not much point in doing so. There’s a little stain on his shirt and he crosses his arms to cover it up.

The door opens, and Akira is both unsurprised and surprised at Akechi Goro’s appearance.

He’s wearing a brown trench coat-like jacket with unusually large buttons and black pants. This is the unsurprising part; Akechi’s room reeked of neutral colors. What’s surprising is the length of his hair: it is nearly down to his shoulders and he has bangs as well, but they’re not cut very evenly. He also has a considerably symmetrical face and very clear skin, unless he’s wearing makeup, which may also be a possibility.

 _He’s pretty,_ Akira thinks.

“Hello,” Akechi says, taking his shoes and jacket off. Underneath his jacket is a plain white shirt. “Kurusu Akira, right?”

“Um,” Akira says lamely. “Yes.”

Silence. In retrospect, Akira really hasn’t left the conversation very open with that response. He also hasn’t left his spot in the kitchen, which has put an awkward amount of space between himself and Akechi to _have_ a proper conversation.

“Well,” Akechi says slowly, looking down at the carpet and then back at Akira, “I’m Akech—”

“Akechi Goro,” Akira finishes for him, and immediately feels like an idiot after he’s said it.

Akechi blinks. “Yes. Anyway, it’s… nice to meet you.” He shuffles a bit, clearly at a loss for what to do.

“You too,” Akira says, and finally leaves the kitchen. He faces Akechi and smiles slightly because he’s worried he’s only come off as rude so far. He searches for something to say, desperate to draw out some more information from this boy. “So, what are you studying?”

“Law,” Akechi says primly. “Criminal and administrative law.”

“Oh.”

“‘Oh’? Why, what are you studying?”

“Film and English.”

Akechi’s eyes narrow at this, which is most definitely not the reaction one hopes for when they share their area of study.

“Is there something wrong with that?” Akira asks, and the moment the words leave his mouth he knows he’s already made a mistake.

“No, nothing,” Akechi says vaguely. There’s an uncomfortable pause, and then: “Well, good night.”

Akira steps in the direction of his room and opens the door. “Yeah, good night.”

He closes the door quietly and slaps himself on the forehead.

Already Akira can tell Akechi thinks not-so-highly of him, just by that _eye narrow._ This is exactly what Akira was hoping to avoid. He was just—taken aback, he supposes, by what Akechi looks like. The hair. The browns. And his eyes were so curiously maroon-red it was like falling into a rosebush.

 _You can fix this,_ Akira consoles himself as he changes, _You can reconcile._

And he can, probably. Akira’s very good with people, despite being known to not say much. Besides, it’s not like Akechi showed any signs of outright _hating_ Akira, he simply seemed… displeased. Which isn’t the absolute end of the world; it’s also night time, and he’d come back to the dorm suspiciously late and likely tired.

Akira continues to think up a litany of explanations as to why the two of them are already off on the wrong foot as he collects his toothpaste and toothbrush and heads to the bathroom.

The door is closed, and Akira opens it without thinking to knock. This was his first mistake.

Akechi stands in front of the mirror, brushing his teeth _and_ wiping his face with a makeup wipe at the same time. He freezes mid-brush and mid-forehead-wipe, and looks at Akira, shifting only his eyes and not his head.

Akira doesn’t leave. This is his second mistake.

Akechi takes the toothbrush out of his mouth and spits into the sink, then looks back up. “Do you need something?” he asks, and oh, there is definitely distaste in his voice. The words splat themselves onto the floor.

“No,” Akira says, “I was just going to brush my teeth.”

“Knock next time, then.”

Internally, Akira sighs.

Except—he also sighs externally. This is his third and final mistake.

“Sorry, I didn’t know knocking would be a chore for you,” Akechi says—or rather, grits—and throws the makeup wipe in the trash can. Underneath his eyes are wide, shiny, dark circles. They look painful.

Akechi waves his hand. “Why are you staring at me?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Akira mutters, moving to leave the bathroom. Without warning, he blurts: “Why don’t you just lock the door if you don’t want me walking in?”

Akechi scowls, opening his mouth slightly as if to say something but then closing it. He slams the door shut with so much force it shakes in the frame.

Akira brushes his teeth in the kitchen sink.

—

The next morning, Akira snoozes his alarm six times before he gets up and regrets it when he realizes he has no time to make breakfast. He laments this as he brushes his teeth (in the bathroom this time).

Additionally, Akechi has left a note on Akira’s door with his cell phone number on it “in case something happens,” as was written. Akira finds this extremely suspicious sounding, but at the same time figures he’s probably being overdramatic. He puts Akechi’s number into his phone while on the train, sends a _this is akira_ text, gets no reply.

More lamenting.

It could be worse. Akechi hasn’t outright said that he _hates_ him yet, though he’s certainly showing signs of intense displeasure. There’s still time to fix it. They’ve known each other less than a day and have has less than ten minutes of conversation.

 _We’re just off on the wrong foot,_ Akira thinks to himself during class. It wouldn’t bother him so much if they weren’t living together, sharing a kitchen and bathroom and food and small entrance room carpet and so on. If they sat next to one another in class or were partnered for a project Akira would worry less over it, but that isn’t the circumstance, and so he continues to worry.

Fortunately, he thinks about it much less as the day passes. He hasn’t done much in any of his classes save for awkwardly greet the people seated around him and read schedules—and he’s not complaining, because this gives him another day to sit around and do things other than schoolwork.

After his classes he meets Ann in a cafe. They discuss first thoughts on professors among other things and have little fancy cakes that are far too expensive.

At one point, Ann brings up Akechi, who Akira had completely forgotten about.

“How is he?” she asks, inspecting the rim of her coffee cup. It’s got a lipstick stain on it.

“Oh, you know,” he says, picking a hangnail. “Fine.”

“That doesn’t seem very fine.”

He peels the hangnail off; it bleeds. “Shit,” he mutters, then sighs. “He doesn’t like me already.”

Ann frowns. “Why not?”

“ _Well,_ I walked in on him in the bathroom.”

Ann’s frown deepens.

“He was just brushing his teeth! But I forgot to knock, and he got mad about it, and slammed the door really hard.”

“Is that all?”

Akira averts his eyes. Ann is so perceptive it scares him sometimes.

A sigh. “What else happened?”

“I told him that if he didn’t want me coming in he should have locked the door, or something like that.”

“Oh, Akira.”

He makes a big scene of raising his hands in protest and half-shouts, “It slipped out! I didn’t mean to say it!”

And it’s true. Akira hadn’t meant to say it aloud. In fact, he wasn’t even thinking it in his head; the words appeared out of thin air and manifested themselves along his vocal cords.

“I’m sure you’ll make up,” Ann says, patting his arm. “It’ll be fine.”

Akira agrees because there’s no use in not doing so. “I’m sure we will too.” He continues to agree with this as he says goodbye to Ann, agrees as he takes the train home, agrees as he walks up the staircase to the dorm, and agrees as he changes clothes and lays down on his bed. He even agrees as he fixes his pillow so it doesn’t feel like his cervical vertebrae are rubbing against one another.

He takes his phone out from his pocket, determined to send a nice text to Akechi and ask if he wants anything for dinner, but is more than slightly shocked to see a message already waiting for him:

 **6:43 PM | akechi goro:** I’ll be back late, just so you know

Akira stares. His fingers hover. He types out _okay,_ but it feels too short. Then he types out _all right_ and it feels too dismissive. He settles on a complete thought:

 **6:58 PM | Me:** okay, let me know if you want me to leave dinner out or something

 _There,_ Akira thinks. _Reconciliation._

He goes through his messages for a while, doesn’t reply to more than half of them because it’s a habit. Ten minutes pass and he still hasn’t received a reply, which he chalks down to Akechi being busy.

There’s no use sitting around waiting for him to reply, though. Akira climbs out of bed and heads for the kitchen. He looks at the kitchen sink and is filled with nostalgia, then starts to comb through all the food Ryuji had bought.

A lot of the things he bought were sweets and chocolate and candies and the like which, although not unappreciated, do not open up his options for making dinner. After quite a bit more searching, he settles on making an omelette.

It’s strange.

Akira is used to being surrounded by people. He was constantly surrounded by friends before college. They ate dinner together, spent multiple nights in a row together, they were always doing something with one another even if it was as mundane as studying. He and Ryuji in particular used to stay up until five in the morning playing video games and talking about anything from school to memories from childhood and now—

—now he’s eating dinner by himself in a small kitchen at a small table and it feels so foreign. Akira had thought Akechi would at the very least be home in the dorm at the same time as he was, but Akechi has barely been home at all. This in itself is suspicious; it’s the first day of classes and already he’s out extremely late. The peculiar part is that he doesn’t seem the type to attend parties, and he also seems like the type to go to sleep early.

Those terrible dark circles say otherwise, though.

Either way, Akechi doesn’t come off as someone that reveals information about himself on the fly, and Akira’s not so sure they’ll be becoming best friends anytime soon, so there’s not much use in trying to figure out whatever he’s doing. For now, the only thing he needs to do is be civil.

Akira sighs, and his phone buzzes immediately afterward:

 **7:41 PM | akechi goro:** Thank you, but I’m all right

Another sigh. Akira thinks he has sighed more in the past 30 hours than he has in a year.

At least the reply wasn’t nasty. Ann was probably right—they just got off on the wrong foot. There’s no need to stress so much. He’s not going to have a compilation of horror roommate stories. Akira’s fine with this.

He eats his omelette.

—

 **11:09 PM | Me:** i forgot to leave the lights on for you when you get back, do you want me to do that from now on?  
**11:12 PM | akechi goro:** Sure

 

** APRIL 11 **

Things have been going well.

Akechi came home around midnight on the day that Akira solemnly ate an omelette. He had knocked on Akira’s bedroom door precisely three times, and when it was opened, promptly apologized for slamming the door the night before. Akira also apologized for being snippy, then they said goodnight, and that was that.

Since that point, they have been relatively polite to one another. Sometimes Akechi is nearly too passive aggressive with his _pleases_ and _thank yous_ but Akira most definitely eggs him on when that happens so it’s mutual. They rarely see each other at home, anyway, as Akechi leaves early and comes home late, both increasingly so as the days have gone by. Akira still doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Once, on a Saturday night, Akira was cleaning dishes in the kitchen when Akechi just happened to come home. This was the second time he had _seen_ Akechi enter the dorm with his own two eyes, aside from the first day they met. He was about to greet him but noticed that Akechi hadn’t moved since he came inside—he simply stood in front of the door, one hand still holding it open, staring at the carpet.

He did this for nearly a minute until Akira had asked whether or not he was all right. He said he was.

Other than that, nothing notable had happened. Things have been going well.

Things _had_ been going well until this morning.

Akira had woken up early to take a shower. By the time he got all his things together, Akechi had already left (in fact, Akira thinks he left while it was still dark outside because it was so quiet), which meant that there was more time for him to stand in the shower and do absolutely nothing.

Everything was all fine and well until he saw _it_ : the yellow post it note stuck to the bathroom door, carrying a message written in bright green marker. _I’d really appreciate it,_ it read, _if you would make an effort to clean up better after you shower. - Akechi._

Of all the things Akechi Goro could write a passive aggressive note about, he wrote about a shower.

Now Akira stands, dumbfounded, holding this note in his hand. Well, it’s actually crumpled up in his hand, but that’s besides the point. He considers how he’s going to retaliate because he has to, or else Akechi will be smug with self satisfaction for a few weeks and say vague things like _oh, I just got the nicest yellow paper the other day!_ at all hours of the day. Akira will not allow that under any circumstances.

After much contemplation, Akira takes a post it note from his room, writes _Please don’t leave your trash on the doors_ on it and sticks it to Akechi’s door.

Then he takes so long showering he ends up nearly late to class.

He half-walks-half-runs in the door feeling immensely stupid but presents himself as the opposite, takes his seat, and proceeds to take notes on phonemes. Halfway through class, the person sitting next to him sneezes on his arm and Akira is so startled that his pen flies across the room and hits someone on the head. Additionally, Ann cancels their weekly meeting at the cafe because she has “the worst cold in the world” so Akira buys a coffee by himself and goes home despondently.

What a stupid day it has been shaping up to be.

Not only all this, but he had also been given a fairly large assignment due at the end of May. He’s got more than enough time, but the thought of spending two hours in a park writing an essay on bird noises is haunting him already. The most comforting thing he can do now is put the assignment in the back of his brain until it becomes more relevant and warm outside.

Akira stomps up the stairwell, fishes around his coat pockets for the key to the door, then unlocks it and steps inside.

He’s taking his shoes off when he hears the sound of another door opening.

“Oh no,” Akira says to his shoes.

“Welcome home,” a voice says.

Akira turns and faces Akechi. He looks him over: he’s wearing a brown turtleneck, almost buried in it, and black pants. It suits him, makes him look soft.

“You’re home early,” Akira says awkwardly.  

“Yes, I wanted to come home and clean up some _trash_ in my room,” he says, and his words are the consistency of a rubber stopper plugging an erlenmeyer flask.

Akira searches for words. “Yeah, it’s always a good idea to clean up trash you might’ve left around.”

“Isn’t it? I feel the same way. You know, Kurusu-kun, I especially think it’s a good idea to clean up trash in bathrooms because germs accumulate easily in there as compared to other places.”

“Compared to what other places? Do you mean on say, doors?”

The side of Akechi’s lip twitches. “Interestingly enough, I found some trash on my door when I came home today.”

“Really? I found some when I woke up.”

Akira should stop, really, but he isn’t going to. Back and forth passive aggressive comments about pieces of paper disguised as the word trash doesn’t really constitute a civil conversation, but it’s funny riling Akechi up because his face gets all twitchy. And because Akira has practically dug his own grave by writing that note in the morning, there’s no point in being desperately polite anymore.

Oh well. Some people just aren’t compatible with one another, it seems.

They’re different in nearly every aspect, probably—Akechi is studying law and Akira is studying not-law. Akechi keeps his room spotless and organizes books alphabetically and has a fancy planner and probably keeps a dream journal or something and Akira has books all over the floor and he just puts all his assignments into the notes on his phone and does not keep a dream journal. _Probably_ is the key word because aside from the characteristics Akechi shows off externally, Akira still isn’t really sure what he’s like with other people.

“You better get to your cleaning,” Akira adds. “Wouldn’t want—”

“You’re really pushing my buttons, you know,” Akechi interrupts, facial expression unsettlingly neutral.

For a moment, Akira is startled. He regains his composure and says, “Sorry, but I wasn’t the one who felt the need to leave a note in _pineapple yellow_ on the bathroom door.”

Akechi dramatically pinches the bridge of his nose. “That sentence means nothing to me because you left a note on my door as well.”

He has a point.

“I wasn’t the one who started it,” Akira says.

“I didn’t do it with the intention of starting anything,” Akechi explains. “I’m just sick of there being shampoo globs all over the ground.”

“Do you not like my coconut shampoo?” Akira asks with fake innocence, smiling.

“I—” Akechi begins, and then stops. He holds his finger up very matter of factly, frozen as he thinks.

Ah. Akira has found a weakness: teasing. “You..?”

“I don’t care,” he says, and clears his throat, “whether your shampoo is coconut scented or salsa scented. I just don’t want it on the ground.”

“That’s sweet. I’m glad you like my shampoo.”

“I didn’t say anything close to that.”

“You were thinking it,” Akira challenges. “Isn’t that why you stopped talking? You were worried you’d say it aloud.”

Akira thinks he sees Akechi’s eyes divert for a microsecond, but he's not sure. “Am I—I just wanted to reword—“

“Well, whatever you were thinking, you can use my shampoo whenever you like, Akechi-kun.” Akira smiles again and winks, just for effect.

Akechi’s face crumples up like a squashed brown bag, especially around his nose. He keeps barely opening his mouth to speak until finally he sighs, says, “Just stop making such a mess,” and retreats to his room before Akira can get in another word edgewise. He slams the door again, which means Akira has won. He mentally congratulates himself for winning a petty argument with a law student just by annoying him.

As a reward for this feat, and because he’s been out all day and only had coffee and it’s making him feel as though he’s been electrocuted, Akira decides to make curry. He sets out the plates and bowls and gracefully digs out a pot from the cabinet, nearly dropping it. As much as Ann tells him he moves like a cat, he certainly never feels like it.

After he’s laid everything out, he opens up the fridge and—

—freezes. Another note, but it’s written on a blue post it note this time. It’s stuck to a carton of almond milk. Akira peels it off.

_Please stop rearranging things in the fridge. It’s annoying. Put things back where they came from. -Akechi_

Akira flees the kitchen and barges into Akechi’s room, note held up high in the air. He waves it around.

“You’re very good at forgetting things,” Akechi says from his bed. He’s holding a book. “Do you still not know how to knock? I can teach you if you like. What if you walked in on me naked?”

“What’s this about?” Akira asks, still waving the note around and ignoring the jab.

“Oh, I forgot I wrote that.” Akechi sits up, legs criss-cross. “I didn’t write that today, by the way. It’s from last night.”

“You wrote… _two?_ ”

“I figured I could get the point across better if it annoyed you, so yes, I wrote two.” He looks back at his book. “It seems it worked.”

Akira’s going to make even more of a mess in the fridge now. “Can’t you just tell me nicely instead of leaving these stupid notes?”

“Yes, I could.” Pause. “I have more gripes about you that I could share. Originally I was planning on leaving other notes, but since you’re here, I can tell you if you want me to.”

“Oh my god,” Akira says, and then: “Well, go ahead.”

Akechi makes a very big scene of bookmarking the page he is on, laying his book down extremely slowly, and sitting up straight. He even dusts off his shirt so dramatically one would think he just spent an hour repairing a car. “To start, you should stop wearing the same pants every day.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Akira says immediately, self consciously looking down at his jeans. They look fine.

“Mine are different pairs, just the same color. Second, sometimes you track dirt in, and I’d really appreciate it if you _didn’t do that._ ”

“I don’t—”

“You just don’t see it because I clean it up for you. Third, you’re really bad at drying dishes. I can see water stains on the plates.”

“I worked at a cafe,” Akira says dumbly.

“That’s not my problem.” He scratches the back of his head. “I can’t think of anything else.”

Akira can’t decide whether or not he wants to slam the door shut or kill Akechi with kindness. He settles on doing both. “You’re so stuck up,” he says, tossing the note onto the floor. “I’m going to make curry. If you want some, you’re welcome to have it.”

There’s just enough time to watch Akechi’s face change from smugness to shock before Akira slams the door.

He makes curry, calls Ann and grumbles about Akechi while he eats. Ann sneezes approximately fourteen times during the whole conversation. Before he goes to his room, Akira sends to Akechi:

 **7:01 PM | Me:** it’s on the table if you want it. still warm. goodnight

When Akira wakes up in the morning, the curry is gone, and a single note is left on the table, this time written in pink on white paper. _Thank you,_ it reads, and at the bottom: _PS: You’re good at cooking. Also, put the pots back in the cabinet before you go to sleep._

Akira sighs.

—

 **7:06 AM | akechi goro:** It’s raining today. Please don’t track mud in when you get home this evening  
**7:55 AM | Me:** ヽ(▼ｰ▼ｷ) don’t worry

 

**MAY 1**

It’s Sunday, thankfully.

Akira has a lot of work to do. This isn’t only including schoolwork, either: he’s got to clean out his room because it’s _really_ getting disorganized, he needs to buy more groceries, and he needs to do laundry. Immediately.

The standing problem is that he’s already used up all of his detergent. Actually, he split the detergent three ways with Ann and Ryuji, which wasn’t a good idea because now he’s out of it and doesn’t have any decent enough clothes he can wear to leave the house and buy more.

It is quite the problem.

It’s only nine in the morning, though. Akira woke up early so he would be able to give himself plenty of time to do everything he needs to do, but he can’t clean his room without picking up all the dirty clothes on the floor and washing them, and he can’t buy groceries until he has something to wear. His ability to do anything else depends on whether or not he gets this laundry done.

And he will get it done, because Akira knows Akechi has laundry detergent.

Conversations with Akechi the past few weeks have been relatively the same: tense, passive aggressive, awkward. Every now and then Akira leaves him dinner like he did the night they argued about _pieces of paper_ , and each time he does, Akechi leaves a note with a compliment and a complaint. It’s become a sort of bizarre routine. Akira saves the notes; he looks over them some nights. They make his chest buzz.

Additionally, Akechi has been sleeping in much longer on Sundays. Akira still isn’t sure what time Akechi typically comes home and isn’t sure what time he goes to sleep either. He is never home first, save for that one time, and when Akira wakes up in the morning on weekdays and Saturdays Akechi is usually gone.

Perhaps his classes both start very early and end very late; he had never thought to ask for Akechi’s schedule. For some reason, asking him why he comes home late makes Akira feel as though he’ll come off as interrogative, so he’s always left it be. It’s all far too much introspection than it’s worth.

Akechi _has_ been looking a little sickly lately though, and while it isn’t Akira’s business, he doesn’t want to come home one day and find his roommate passed out on the little round carpet. Perhaps he’ll ask if he’s all right sometime. Maybe.

Nevertheless, because Akechi is still sleeping, this gives Akira a very open opportunity to sneak into his room and steal detergent. He’s wearing socks so his feet will make as little noise as possible and is also holding a container to pour the detergent into.

So very slowly Akira opens Akechi’s bedroom door, moving the handle in small increments as to avoid the stupid clicking noise it makes when it sets back in its original position. He tiptoes into the room, praying the floor doesn’t creak. The detergent is easy to spot, thankfully—next to his laundry basket. Akira pours some into his container and seals the lid.

He looks at Akechi. His bed is shoved up against the wall, unlike Akira’s which is more or less in the center of his room with only the headboard against the wall. Akechi is wrapped in half a thousand comforters—it looks ridiculously sweaty—and he faces the wall, curled up like a pillbug. Akira feels awkward for invading his privacy, suddenly, and for seeing him sleep there in a way that makes him look so very small.

Akira frowns. Something flutters in his stomach. He suddenly imagines himself waking Akechi up for breakfast, pulling the comforters off just to annoy him, and then imagines what the comforters must feel like, so soft, Akechi must be comfortable, the image changes and now he’s laying with Akechi arms wrapped around him kissing his neck and—

Akira stops, confused about where this train of thought had come from. He’s next to the bed, now, hand outstretched, about to touch Akechi’s hair. Immediately he recoils and steps back, shaking his head. _Forget that happened,_ his inner monologue says, and he decides to do exactly that.

Other than a few more papers laying around, Akechi’s room hasn’t changed much since the very beginning of the year when Ann chastised Akira for entering the room without permission. There are still no photos of anyone, the books are still arranged the same way, there is still a planner sitting on the desk.

Akira wonders whether or not Akechi has ever looked through his room, but then realizes this is unlikely. As far as Akira knows he always comes back to the dorm before Akechi does save for the time a few weeks ago. The only time Akechi would ever be able to look into Akira’s room is during the night, but Akira also doubts he’s done that, because he has no reason to do so.

That’s what he thinks, anyway. There’s no way to tell for certain unless he asks Akechi himself, which Akira will not be doing. If Akechi knew Akira has secretly entered his room _twice_ then he’d probably already have confronted him about it.

Well, not much use in thinking too hard about it.

Akira leaves Akechi’s room, closing the door softly behind him and exhaling once he’s in the center room. There’s still plenty of time left in the day to do everything he needs to do.

He puts all his laundry in a basket with the detergent and a book from class and heads up to the laundry room.

As much as he needs to do schoolwork, Akira cannot for the life of him stop feeling bad for going into Akechi’s room. He’s not sure why it bothers him so much, as he didn’t feel invasive before and was sure he wouldn’t this time. It has something to do with how vulnerable he looked sleeping, Akira thinks. He hasn’t ever seen Akechi in any other light save for their arguments and disagreements. It was endearing, somewhat, to see him not-pent-up.

His stomach is fuzzy again. It’s concerning.

—

Akechi’s detergent smells good.

Akira hadn’t noticed until he got on the train on the way back from buying groceries. His shirt smelled like lavender, like spring.

His own detergent just smells like boring cotton.

Because of this discovery, Akira spent a better part of the train ride feeling startled at the fact that now he’s thinking about how Akechi _smells._ He doesn’t think about how Ryuji or Ann smell in his free time, and he’s closer to them than anyone else. All he and Akechi do is fight yet here Akira is, thinking about how he smells, among other things.

He still thinks about the detergent as he walks up the stairwell and unlocks the door to his dorm. He stops thinking about it, however, when he sees Akechi standing in the kitchen, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. The t-shirt is too big for him, it drapes lopsided around his neck and reveals smooth skin.

_Oh no._

“Uh, hey,” Akira says. His voice cracks, and he wants to jump off a building.

Akechi turns around. He’s holding coffee. “Oh, good morning, Kurusu-kun.”

That tone of voice is not a good one. Instead of addressing how annoyed—or perhaps piqued—he sounds, Akira says, “It’s actually the afternoon now.”

“Hmm.” Akechi looks at the wall clock. “So it is. It seems you’ve been up a while, what with all those groceries you’re holding.”

Akira’s eyebrows raise. He had forgotten he bought groceries, despite holding four bags of them. “Yeah, I have. Been up for a while, I mean.”

“Did you get everything you needed?” Akechi asks with a smile. He is being far too nice and it’s worrying.

“I guess so. Are you all right?”

At that Akechi frowns. He puts down his coffee and crosses his arms. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

“No reason. You just seem very cheery for the morning.”

“Afternoon,” Akechi corrects, smug.

Akira sighs. He walks and puts the bags down on the countertops. Akechi watches from behind, nearly over his shoulder, and now Akira is _sure_ something is off. He can feel Akechi’s breath on his neck and as each half second passes he gets closer to climbing into the refrigerator and staying there.

“More lettuce, I see,” Akechi says, still peering.

“Yeah.” Akira swallows. “Are you sure you’re fine? Did something good happen?”

“Oh, no, nothing good ever happens to me,” Akechi says conversationally, and Akira can’t tell whether or not he’s joking.

“Then why are you watching me unbag produce?”

“Am I not allowed to be interested in what you bought?”

Akira stares at him like he’s giving a lecture on staples.

A honeyed laugh. “All right, fine. If you must know, I made a very interesting observation when I woke up.”

Akira immediately knows this is about the stupid detergent. “Oh,” he says, deciding to feign ignorance. “What was it?”

“There was some detergent on the floor near my laundry basket. I thought that was strange, considering I hadn’t done laundry overnight, unless I did it in my sleep.”

Akira visibly winces. “That’s weird,” he says flimsily. He taps his fingers against the countertop, hoping to annoy Akechi with his fingernail clicking so much that he’ll forget what he is saying. Of course, this is extremely wishful thinking.

“It _is_ weird _.”_ Pause. “You know, if you wanted detergent you could have just asked instead of putting in the effort of sneaking into my room and taking it.”

“I, uh, didn’t want to wake you up.” This is half true.

“Sure,” Akechi says. “I would have said yes, by the way.”

Akira makes a face. “No you wouldn’t have.”

The moment Akira says this, he regrets it. That’s a terrible assumption. Based on how they interact with each other, one wouldn’t assume that Akira makes Akechi dinner sometimes, but he does.

So it’s silly to think Akechi wouldn’t do nice things in return.

“Sorry, wait,” he says before Akechi has a turn to speak again. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Akechi responds with an _mmmm_ and stares grimly at his coffee.

The silence is terrible, to say the least. Akira thinks he can hear his muscles twitching; he can’t leave now without saying anything else because that would both make him look like an asshole and not provide enough metaphorical closure as well.

And he wants to keep talking to Akechi.

“You smell good,” he says quickly, and then curses himself for phrasing it that way. His eyes slide to Akechi’s collarbone and then to the wall.

Akechi looks up from his coffee, expression changing from solemnity to distress in slow motion. “Excuse me?” he asks, unable to keep the eye contact.

“I meant that your detergent smells good.” Akira considers what to say next, knows it’s a bad idea, but says it anyway. “Which also means that you smell good too.”

“Oh,” is all Akechi says.

“My detergent just smells like cotton,” Akira continues, “But yours is _lavender_ and it’s so different and suits you well. I’m sure your clothes all smell so nice.”

Akechi’s eyes are open so wide they look like they could fall out of the sockets.

“And, if you’ll let me, I’d like to borrow it again sometime.” Akira smiles. This statement is genuine, even though it doesn’t seem so from the tone of voice. Though he realizes that in this instance he didn’t exactly _borrow_ anything, more like _stole_ it, but he doesn’t want to reaffirm the statement because too many seconds have passed already and it’s worrying him that Akechi hasn’t said anything yet and he wonders whether or not he went too far with the teasing even though it didn’t feel much like teasing anymore, more like flirting, more like—    
  
“You,” Akechi says, rubbing his hands down his face as though he’s in agony, “Why are you doing this to me.”

It’s definitely a statement and not a question.

Akira isn’t sure what to say so he just stands there, picking a hangnail and counting the number of tiles on the floor.

“You can use it,” Akechi finally says, voice uncharacteristically wobbly. “Just tell me when you want to. I’ll buy extra if you like it that much.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“No, it’s fine.” Akechi sighs and then gestures to the abandoned grocery bags. “Let me help you put all this away.”

—

 **1:31 AM | akechi goro:** I went to the store. I bought you detergent. I’m putting it outside your door  
**1:32 AM | akechi goro:** I’m sure you’re sleeping already so I didn’t want to knock  
**1:32 AM | akechi goro:** Well, goodnight  
**8:19 AM | Me:** thank you so much <3  
**8:19 AM | Me:** have a good day (￣ε￣〃)ｂ

 

**MAY 15**

Akira is stressed.

He most definitely should not have put off that project he was given so long ago until now. It is due at 11:59 PM tonight, and currently, it is just past four o’clock in the afternoon.

It is quite the problem.

He worked on it last night—or, technically, he planned out the project last night. He sat in the park for a while and took notes on birds and then made an outline at the dorm. For the second time ever (the first was four nights prior), Akechi had asked if Akira could make him dinner which, quite frankly, was an undeniably domestic request but Akira was more than happy to.

And so Akira had made eggs for himself and Akechi. As he was taking his plate back to his room, Akechi had touched his hand to Akira’s back and asked in such a smooth voice: “Are you all right?”

He wasn’t expecting the gesture so Akira had whipped around far too intensely than the moment warranted and nearly dropped his plate. It felt like he’d been shocked.

Akechi furrowed his brows.

“I’m fine,” Akira had said hastily, composing himself. “I have a big project due tomorrow that I put off until today is all.”

“Well, good luck with that,” Akechi said, and it sounded like there should have been malice in his voice but there wasn’t.

“Um, thanks.” Akira looked at his plate, at Akechi, at his plate again, and then back at Akechi. He thinks about kissing him, which he has been thinking about a lot lately, and then quickly banishes the thought. “I… gotta get to it now.”

Then they said goodnight and that was that.

Akira spent the rest of the evening well into the early morning planning the stupid project. He slept slightly, then went to classes and took uselessly vague notes. On the train ride home he nearly fell asleep and missed his stop but by an act of fate an old man bumped into him and knocked him awake.

Now he is once again back at his desk in his dorm, staring at the plan for this project.

He’d probably get more done would he go to the library but he’s already home now and is truly too tired to leave. Another train ride means another opportunity to fall asleep and the universe only has so many miraculous, clumsy old people.

He bangs his head on his desk and sighs. If he closes his eyes for longer than three seconds he will most definitely fall asleep, but the desk is so inviting and he’s already laying his head in his arms now and—

—there’s a knock at his door.

“Hold on,” he says into his elbow. His sweater is soft and smells like lavender.

Seconds pass by. Akira forgets about the knocking until it starts up again about twenty seconds later, accompanied by a voice.

“Aki—uh, Kurusu-kun—open up your door,” the voice says.

It sounds so sweet, Akira vaguely thinks. He doesn’t move, though, ruminating instead.

More knocking. “Open the door!”

Akira scrambles to his feet, nearly knocking over the desk chair in the process. He throws some clothes on the floor into his laundry basket, apparently self conscious about the state of his room. It’s the clothes that are making it look so messy; they’re all over the place. Akira makes a mental note to do something about them… later.

He opens the door and rubs his eyes. “Hello, Akechi-kun,” he says. Akechi looks funny through his bleary vision.

“Hello.” Akechi makes a face as he looks over Akira. “You look… exhausted.”

“Thank you so much,” Akira says. “You look great too.” He isn’t joking, but Akechi can’t tell.

Akechi continues staring. He waves a cup of coffee around Akira’s face. “I got you this,” he says meekly, “because I figured you’d be up late and would be tired.”

Akira’s eyes widen. “Oh.”

Akechi has been holding out this coffee to Akira for at least five seconds, which is far too long of a time for him to not take it. “Do you want it, or do you want to watch me hold it for a little longer?” he asks.

Akechi bought him coffee.

He takes the coffee. His finger touches Akechi’s and it makes him jolt.

“Uh,” Akira says, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. This gives me an excuse to ask you to—uh.” He stops mid sentence. “Never mind.”

Akira frowns. “To ask me to what?”

“Never mind.”

With over exaggerated exasperation Akira throws his arms around, attempting to keep the coffee from spilling at the same time. “You can’t just stop talking like that and expect me to not wonder what you were going to say.”

“It’s not important.”

“Clearly it’s something significant if you’re too embarrassed to say it.”

Akechi sighs. “Well,” he starts, and then: “Well. It gives me an excuse to ask you to make me dinner again.”

Akira stares at him.

“Not today, as you’re too busy with the, um, project,” he says quickly. A blush spreads across his cheeks. “Just sometime. Pretend I didn’t say this, actually.”

“I don’t mind, you know.” Pause. “Like, it’s fine.”

“Like, okay,” Akechi mocks. He stands quietly for a moment, then says, “Good luck on the project, then,” and promptly closes the door.

Akira tries the coffee.

It’s good.

—

By some miracle, Akira manages to submit the project at 11:50 PM, a whole nine minutes early. He’s very proud of himself for this, and would be moreso if not for how much his eyes burn thanks to the caffeine he has consumed as well as the lack of sleep.

He walks into the kitchen for water and is surprised to see Akechi sitting at the kitchen table. There’s a cup in front of him and he’s staring at it, stirring its contents with the back end of a spoon. The light from the ceiling lamp casts a strange glow on his hair, and for a moment, Akira just looks at him. He isn’t sure whether Akechi has noticed him yet or not.

“Uh,” Akira says finally, lacking a mental dictionary.

Akechi turns his head and ceases the stirring. “Good evening. Did you finish your project?”

For one reason or another, Akira is startled by this question. The question in itself isn’t particularly strange, it’s just the way he delivers it, face all soft and genuine and the stupid light highlighting his face in a certain way. Akira wants to run his hands along his jaw, figure out the right place for his hands and—

A problem seems to be developing.

Akira bites the inside of his cheek. “Yeah,” he says. “I just came to get a drink.”

Akechi goes back to stirring whatever is in the cup. “Hmmm.”

“What’s _hmm?_ ” Akira asks. He takes down a glass from the cabinet and fills it with water, leaning back against the countertop.

“Nothing, nothing.”

Akira steps away from the countertop and stands behind Akechi instead, resisting the urge to put a hand on his shoulder. “What’re you stirring?” He stands on his tip toes in an effort to try and see inside of the cup.

“So many questions today.” Pause. “It’s just tea. I forgot I was stirring it, truthfully.”

“Something on your mind?” Akira asks, not realizing what he’s saying until the words come out. It’s not strange to ask that but it feels like it should be, at least in this instance. If Akechi doesn’t want to answer he doesn’t have to, and it’s common courtesy to ask anyway.

Akira cannot believe he’s questioning whether or not it’s acceptable ask someone if they’re okay.

The kitchen has become so suddenly and uncharacteristically quiet; Akira hadn’t noticed it until right this second. It feels like he’s in a movie.

“Nothing… specifically,” Akechi says cautiously. “I’ll be all right.” He gives a sad smile.

“If you need anything, I’ll be glad to, uh—help.”

Akira isn’t sure what invisible force then prompts him to then sit next to Akechi at the kitchen table. One second he’s standing, the next second he blinks, the third he’s sitting down. He shifts the glass of water between his two hands, looking at the wall all the while.

Akechi taps his fingers on the table. “This is a first,” he says, tone vague. _A first._ This is true. They’ve never sat next to one another at the table before.

Akira stops playing with the glass and folds his hands together. “I just—wanted to apologize for how annoying I was in the first few weeks you lived here… with me. I wanted to get under your skin because you were really uptight—“

“Is this an apology?”

“—I’m just being honest. Anyway, I don’t think you’re like that now. You’re really nice and funny and you smell nice and you’re also really attracti—“

Akechi puts his hand on Akira’s arm to stop him from continuing. “You should sleep,” he says calmly, simply. “You seem tired.”

Akira stares, mouth slightly agape. He hadn’t meant to say any of those things. Either he’s more tired than he thought he was or Akechi put some sort of truth serum in that coffee. “You seem tired too,” he says stupidly.

“I am. But I have a few more things to do for my classes.” A sigh. “I was just taking a break. Or—more like wasting time.” He taps the cup of tea with his index finger. “I was wasting time stirring this.”

“It’s good to take breaks,” Akira says, resting his chin in his hands.

“I don’t have very much time to take breaks.”

“It’s still good to take them anyway.”

Akechi stares at Akira like he’s a ghost. For a long, horrible moment he doesn’t say anything, instead darting his eyes from the cup to Akira and back to the cup a few times. “I still think you should sleep,” Akechi finally says. “Want me to tuck you in?”

Akira’s jaw falls onto the floor.

“Joking,” Akechi says with a grin. He stands up, and Akira immediately stands up afterward. The chair squeaks against the floor.

“Okay, okay, I’ll sleep.” Akira’s brain is so fuzzy and exceptionally tired. He blurts: “Can I wear one of your shirts?”

Akechi blinks.

“Oh, shit,” Akira whispers. A problem is most definitely developing.

“Sorry?”

Akira purses his lips and says nothing. He pushes the chairs in and says nothing. He puts his glass in the sink and _still_ says nothing. Despite how much he wishes he could continue to act like he didn’t say anything, he also knows that Akechi isn’t dumb and won’t drop it so easy.

“I’m just tired,” Akira mumbles, waving his hand around, refusing to make eye contact. “Not thinking straight!”

Once again Akechi is stirring his tea. He bites the inside of his lip for a good second, either deep in thought or fake-deep in thought, then puts the tea on the table.

Akira pretends to peel a hangnail off as to avoid more eye contact. “I’ll… be going to bed now—“

“No!” Akechi shouts, and he flinches at his own exclamation. “You can wear one. One of my shirts, that is. If you want. If it’ll help you sleep. Or just if you like.”

There is metaphorical sweat dripping off Akechi’s face. He looks like a lawyer caught in his own lie. In this case, of course, there’s not any lie at all, which makes the situation all the more amusing.

It would be fifty times more amusing if Akira wasn’t so flustered as well. He has no idea where any of the things he’s saying are coming from. Akira isn’t the type of person to rush right ahead and reveal his feelings about _anything;_ if he does want to reveal something, it is always done secretively, hidden behind a joke or facial expression. Rarely does he state anything so outright without providing a cushion to the words.

“Are you going to keep standing around and staring at me like my head is a big block of wood?” Akechi asks. Then, with significantly less confidence: “Or… do you want me to… get you a shirt now?”

“Oh, uh. A shirt is fine.” Akira smiles, but it’s definitely a crooked one.

At that, Akechi throws his arms up into the air and leaves his room, and for once, he is probably truly speechless. And that’s saying something—Akechi always has something to talk about.

He returns shortly with a blue t-shirt in hand, which he shoves into Akira’s arms straightaway. “Here,” he mutters, eyes fixed on a stray mark on the floor. “Sleep well.”

“Yeah,” Akira says slowly, “Good night.”

—

 **4:11 AM | akechi goro:** Is it comfortable?  
**4:11 AM | akechi goro:** The shirt, that is  
**4:11 AM | akechi goro:** I hope it is  
**8:01 AM | Me:** it’s comfortable  
**8:01 AM | Me:** why up so late akechi-kun?  
**8:04 AM | akechi goro:** I was thinking about you  
**8:04 AM | Me:** ◎_◎;  
**8:09 AM | akechi goro:** About the shirt.

 

**MAY 27**

Things have been going well.

Things have been going relatively well, anyway. At least on Akira’s part they are—he’s been keeping ahead with his assigned projects and notes and work. He does laundry once a week (using Akechi’s detergent) even when he doesn’t want to. He still sees Ann, still sees Ryuji, still is civil with Akechi.

In fact, he’s definitely more than civil with Akechi. They’ve started taking turns buying one another coffee and tea every few days. At first the exchange was awkward, which probably stemmed from the t-shirt incident that happened a few days prior. It’s not awkward anymore, though, especially because Akira has begun buying strange drinks like spicy coffee and water blended with placenta just to bother Akechi.

Speaking of the t-shirt incident: the morning after that conversation, Akechi seemed to have silently assumed it would be best to pretend that nothing had happened, which was fine by Akira. The only problem with this decision was that Akira has never had the opportunity to return the shirt. Sneaking into Akechi’s room would be an absolutely stupid move considering he’s done it twice before _and_ because Akechi is nearly always in there now. No longer does he stay out late and leave early; he still goes to classes, but is now always home before Akira.

This is why things have been going _relatively_ well. Akira is doing fine but he can tell Akechi isn’t.

One night Akira came home late after doing something with Ann and found Akechi sleeping on the kitchen table. This was the first thing that made Akira pay closer attention to Akechi’s demeanor as it was truly unlike him to fall asleep in a wooden chair with all of the lights still on.

The second thing that made Akira _really_ start to pay attention was when he walked into the bathroom and saw Akechi sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees, back to the wall, staring at the tiles. “Pretend I’m not here,” was all he said to Akira before he stood up and left.

The third thing that definitely confirms his suspicions that something isn’t right with Akechi has just happened a few seconds ago.

Akira was falling asleep when he heard a bang and a shout.

He’s sitting up now, hands gripping the sheets like they’re a lifeline. The first thing he thinks is _someone’s broken into the dorm—_ but that wouldn’t make sense because the noise didn’t sound like it came from the center room.

The most likely source, then, is Akechi.

He throws the blankets off himself and turns on his phone flashlight before heading into the center room. In his other hand he’s holding a wooden ruler and although it isn’t functional as a weapon or much of anything at all, holding it makes him feel better.

The clock on his phone says it’s just past three in the morning.

Akira scours the kitchen and bathroom, unnecessarily opening up cabinets and looking inside the fridge as if a perpetrator will pop out. He confirms that nobody is in the dorm and knocks on Akechi’s door with the end of the ruler.

“Hey,” he says, “Are you okay? I heard a noise.”

No response.

Once again Akira knocks with the end of the ruler, a few times more than the first. He repeats his question and still doesn’t receive an answer.

“I’m coming in,” he then says, with false nerve, ruler still in hand.

The room is dark when Akira opens the door. He flicks the light on and scans the area slowly. It’s a mess—at least, for Akechi, it’s a mess. There are papers all over floor, some covered in huge black sharpie scribbles and others crumpled and ripped up. A book is near the door; Akira assumes it’s the source of the sound he heard earlier.

 _Famous Politicians: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly_ is the title of the book.

Next to the desk chair, Akechi lays on the floor. He’s curled into a ball, arms clutching at his head, body motionless. The papers surrounding him look like an omen; the window on the opposite end of the room is cracked open and the incoming draft rustles some of the sheets.

Akira scrambles over, dropping the ruler and his phone on the way, which still has its flashlight turned on. He isn’t sure what to do. High school didn’t prepare him to deal with this particular scenario.

His hands hover for a moment before he lightly touches Akechi’s shoulder and asks, “What happened?”

Akechi doesn’t say anything. He digs his hands into his hair.

“Here,” Akira says, gripping Akechi’s arms, “Sit up at least. Nothing good will come out of ripping your nice hair.”

Akira doesn’t know the best way to get through to Akechi. There’s too many aspects of him that are still foggy; too much of Akechi lives in hiding.

Akechi lets Akira help him up and simply says, “My hair isn’t pretty.”

“That’s what you think,” Akira says quietly. He touches his hand to Akechi’s chin and tilts his head up—an impressively intimate gesture but done straight faced nonetheless. “I think it’s nice.”

Akechi’s eyes are empty. He jerks his head away.

For a split second Akira contemplates lifting his chin up again but decides against it. Instead he sits in front of Akechi, legs criss-cross. He touches the other’s knee. “Akechi,” he says, softer this time. “What happened?”

“Please don’t look at me when I’m crying,” Akechi mumbles. He rubs at his eyes.

“You don’t have to tell me if you really don’t want to,” Akira reassures. “But I’m not going to think you’re a baby or anything like that.”

Akechi sighs. His body language is so closed off, arms wrapped around legs and back slumped over. It’s as though he’s folding himself up. “I know you wouldn’t think that.”

“Either way, I’m here to listen if you want me to.” Akira smiles and it feels strange. “I can make tea if you want that.”

“No, it’s fine,” Akechi says, waving his hand around. “It’s already so late.”

“I don’t mind.” Akira takes his hand off Akechi’s knee. It had been resting there for far too long. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

Part of Akira wants to advise Akechi to not go to classes tomorrow. As far as he knows, Akechi has never missed a class before; of course attendance is mandatory, but they’re allowed one absence without explanation as per rule. The other part of him, though, is hesitant to even bring up the fact that there are classes tomorrow.

He’s so stupidly lost in thought about this that he doesn’t realize Akechi has started crying again. It only becomes apparent when he hears a sharp inhale.

“Hey,” Akira says, soft again. “Goro.”

The wind chime hanging from the window sings.

Akechi shakes his head violently, like he’s caught up in a bunch of spiderwebs. He says something like _don’t look at me,_ but it’s hard to tell whether or not that’s what he has actually said because he’s covering his face in his knees.

“Goro,” Akira repeats. He puts his hand back on Akechi’s knee. “Come on. You should get some sleep. You’ll feel better.”

“I’m so stupid,” Akechi says out of nowhere, ignoring Akira’s suggestion. “I’m just stressed. I have so much to do but nothing at all at the same time.” He sighs. “I’m being dramatic. It’s not as bad as I’m making it out to be.”

“I don’t think you’re being dramatic. I think you’re stressing yourself out by giving yourself expectations that are too high.”

“Maybe,” Akechi says vaguely. “There’s more to it. I’m not being very truthful, but I suppose it’s one of those things I need to work out on my own.”

Akira can tell he’s not looking for advice so he drops the subject and stands up. He holds out his hand to help Akechi and looks at him once he’s on his feet.

As much as he wants to do something for him, he doesn’t know where to start. And getting into Akechi’s business without his explicit permission wouldn’t be right either way.

“Akechi,” Akira whispers, then pauses.

“What happened to _Goro?_ ” Akechi asks, giving a half-smug smile. He’s very desperately trying to seem as though he’s unaffected but failing miserably what with how twisted up his face is.

“Goro,” Akira corrects, and then: “You know, if you don’t dry these away, they’ll make your cheeks all grainy with salt.” He reaches up and wipes at a tear with his thumb. Akechi does not flinch.

“You keep touching my face,” he says.

Akira raises his eyebrows and lowers his hand. “Is that bad?”

“No, just an observation,” Akechi says. “You have soft hands.”

Silence. Akira glances to the open window, hoping the wind will tell him what to say next, but it gives him no answer.

“I’m not sure how to comfort you,” he says after a moment, deciding to be honest. “But actions speak louder than words and… all that.”

Akira hesitates for a split second before embracing Akechi. He can feel Akechi’s body tense underneath his arms.

“Relax,” he says, and Akechi cries once again—freely this time, without the unpleasantness of attempting to hold it in. He hugs Akira back, arms tight around his torso and face tucked against his shoulder. The room is quiet save for the sound of rustling papers and the hymn of the wind chime. There are no lights turned on outside; Akira’s phone flashlight illuminates Akechi’s room from the ground to the ceiling at a diagonal angle.

Time stands still. There is a lump in Akira’s throat. He closes his eyes and wills it to go away.

“Sorry,” Akechi says very suddenly, pulling himself away. “I got your shirt a bit wet at the corner.” He touches the spot for a moment that feels far longer than it really is and looks at Akira. His face is red and shiny from crying but it’s all right.

“You’re taller than me,” Akira says dumbly. His arm moves itself automatically and rests on Akechi’s hip, thumb moving under his shirt to touch bare skin.

“Yes,” Akechi whispers, “I am. But just barely.”

“I like that you’re taller than me.”

“Do you? I like it too, then.” Pause. Akechi tilts his head and smiles like it’s his first time doing so. “This is very intimate, Akira. It’s bold of you.”

He ignores the comment and instead says: “I still have your shirt, if you want it back.”

Akechi shakes his head. “No, you can keep it. I don’t wear it much anyway.” He slides the hand lying on Akira’s shoulder up to his cheek and hums. “Nice skin,” he says conversationally. “Smooth.”

“I don’t do anything fancy to it.”

“Lucky you,” Akechi says, barely audible. “Did you know that actions speak louder than words? Someone told me that once.”

Akira can’t help but laugh. “And who was it that said that?”

Instead of receiving an answer, Akechi leans forward and kisses Akira on the mouth.

It’s very eternal. The Earth stops its movement on its axis and cars freeze in time on streets and birds float motionlessly mid-flight and volcanoes stop erupting and the floor falls out from beneath them—the works.

This entire situation is funny, considering they couldn’t hold a conversation a month ago without either one of them storming out of the room.

But it’s all right now.

Looking back, Akechi began acting strange even before Akira had asked for his shirt. It was clear he was having an awkward time making eye contact by the way his eyes darted away every now and then whenever they talked to one another. Besides that, Akira has a feeling Akechi was getting flustered by the way he texted him.

They pull away from one another.

“Hm,” Akechi hums. “You need chapstick.”

“I don’t own any chapstick,” Akira says, making a face.

“You can use some of mine if you ever wanted to.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Akira mumbles, laying his head on Akechi’s shoulder. “Sleep in with me tomorrow?”

Akechi makes a sound like he’s choking on a fishbone.

“Unless you don’t want to,” he adds hastily. “But it _is_ really late.”

“Are you suggesting that I should skip classes tomorrow morning?”

“That’s not what I said specifically but it’s what I’m implying,” Akira says, realizing that a simple _Yes_ would suffice. He’s not a very talkative person, really, but something about Akechi makes him speak before thinking rather than think before speaking.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to.” Akechi sighs, and it shakes Akira out of thought. “I think if I missed class I’d just get more stressed, though.”

“Are you really stressed out this much from your classes? Or is something else bothering you more?”

Akira squints his eyes and leans his head forward, hoping he’s adequately conveying the facial expression he’s going for. By the look Akechi gives back, it’s definitely worked. “If you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine too, by the way. I just don’t want you blaming it on something else or you’ll never solve it.”

“It’s unsolvable,” Akechi says dimly, voice going quiet like the echo of a gong.

“Hm,” is the reply Akira gives. In addition to not wanting advice, it’s also clear that Akechi doesn’t want to talk about it much either—at least, definitely not now. He decides to let the subject go.

Akira motions toward Akechi’s bed. “You should sleep,” he says, “if you’re going to get up to go to class in three hours.”

Akechi stares at his bed. It’s four in the morning and his bed is untouched; there are no signs of anyone sitting on it let alone sleeping on it. It’s the exact same as it was in the beginning of the semester, too, except the comforters on top have been removed. “I think,” he says slowly, “that I’ll sleep in.”

“Really?” Akira asks, eyes widening.

“Yes, really.” Pause. “Is that surprising?”

“A little bit, I guess.”

Akechi sighs. He sits on the bed, tugging Akira to sit down next to him. “I’m attempting to force myself to stress over schoolwork so that I won’t be stressed about other things, but it’s backfiring and only making me feel worse.”

Akira furrows his brows. It seems obvious that it would backfire but he doesn’t say anything because he still doesn’t know the situation.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asks, leaning back.

“Not tonight,” Akechi says with a hum. “Maybe some other time.” He ropes his arm around Akira and pulls him down beside him, awkwardly wiggling underneath the blankets in the process.

“That was uncharacteristic,” Akira says, pleased.

Akechi yanks the blankets off of him in retaliation.

 

**JUNE 30**

It’s the last day of the term, and Akira has just walked out of his last final exam.

It went well, he thinks. He finished early, which may be either a good thing or a bad thing. He’s decided to not think too much about it, though, because he can’t change the outcome now that it’s over with. All there is left to do is wait for the results.

He’s on his way to the law and business buildings now; they’re in a place on campus that he has never been to because he hasn’t had a reason to until now. The buildings are all extremely tall with balconies beyond balconies and huge, smooth windows lining most of the surface area of each wall. It is completely different from the area of campus he sticks to—it’s much more geometric here. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Akira’s no architect, anyway.

He waits underneath a tree for Goro to finish his last exam. Every now and then a person walks by and Akira smiles at them and pathetically lifts his hand as a half-wave but never receives much of a smile in return.

Everyone here is intimidating.

 **3:56 PM | Me:** i’m outside the building you said to go to  
**3:56 PM | Me:** hurry up everyone seems so grumpy here -___-  
**4:04 PM | goro:** I just finished I’m coming now

They’re going to meet Ann and Ryuji in the cafe Akira normally goes to. It’s somewhat of a hike from this part of  campus, but it’s not too hot today so Akira doesn’t mind.

He taps his foot against the cement as he waits.

Truthfully, Akira is glad the spring term is over. It went by quickly, sure, but far too much happened in such a short period of time.

For one, Goro came clean to Akira about what had been happening to him. Akira came home one night and found him hysterically rearranging everything in his room in a nonsensical way—he had put all of the furniture in the center of the room and lined the walls with each book he owned. There was no order to it.

Akira had sat him down, made him tea, and asked what was going on.

Goro was honest.

From what he had explained, Akira understood that some things happened to Goro when he was young. He explained it relatively vaguely; Akira didn’t press on the specifics because Goro’s face contorted itself so much even when he was barely giving details. The problem was that one of the classes he was in—something fancy about the ethics of politics that Akira didn’t really understand—continuously mentioned someone that was apart of his childhood.

At first, Goro said that it didn’t bother him very much. But the name kept coming up over and over again in each unit and he couldn’t skip the class, couldn’t tell the professor because he was worried they would advise him to simply drop the class and he _couldn’t._ It was a required class. So he listened and listened and listened and took notes on whomever this man was for monthsweeksdayshoursminutesseconds. It started to get to him, obviously.

 _It made me paranoid,_ he had said. _Or something of that nature._

He hadn’t meant to rearrange his room. In fact, he told Akira that he didn’t really remember rearranging it at all. They left the room the way it was overnight and Akira fixed it the next day.

And that was that.

Looking back, Akira could tell when it started getting bad. It was before he found him sitting on the floor in the bathroom staring at nothing. It was shortly after the detergent incident when he noticed a piece of paper left on the kitchen table next to Goro’s planner. It was the same word, over and over again: _out out out out out outout ou tout ou tt out out._ At the bottom of the page was the phrase _everything happens for a reason_ highlighted yellow.

Akira hadn’t thought much of it, but he wish he had.

He scratches his wrist and looks at the door to the building. Goro emerges, looking huffy.

“Sorry,” he says as he walks over, rubbing his forehead. “The elevator got stuck for a few minutes.”

“Don’t worry. How’d it go?”

“Fine.” Goro sighs, and they begin to walk. “I didn’t think it would be so long, but still fine nonetheless.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess.” Akira picks a hangnail. “I’m just glad they’re over.”

They fall into pace in silence, occasionally commenting on someone that walks by or on a sign posted. The sides of Akira’s face by his ears are all sweaty—so much for the day not being very hot. He tries to wipe some with his wrist but it only makes him feel gross.

“Oh,” he says suddenly, “I forgot I have to pack my stuff today.”

“Pack?” Goro raises an eyebrow.

“I’m going back home for the summer, kind of. Not to my parents. In high school I had to live in the attic of a cafe for a while because of an… incident. I’m going there.”

“Incident?”

Akira waves his hand. “It’s unimportant now, but I’m kind of surprised I was able to get into college because of it.”

“What, did you get arrested?”

“Yeah.” Akira takes a deep inhale through his nose. “But like I said, it’s not important. I’ll tell you another time.” He fans himself with his hand. It’s gotten at least four degrees warmer in the last minute. “How far away do you live from here anyway? Are you going home?”

Goro doesn’t reply as immediately as usual. He hums, considering his words, perhaps, and then says, “I don’t really have a reason to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—I don’t have anyone I’d consider a parent. There’s nothing for me to go home to. I lived alone in high school and was given permission from the university to have this dorm be my new living address.” Pause. “For a while, anyway. I don’t want to live in there for the rest of my life.”

“Oh,” Akira says, feeling horribly stupid. “You can come with me if you want to.”

The words are out of his mouth before he can think about the implication. His room in the attic of that cafe is so dusty and has no air conditioning and he’s not even sure whether or not Sojiro would let him—

“I couldn’t,” Goro says quietly. “I’d feel like I’d be intruding.”

“I invited you, didn’t I? So you couldn’t intrude.” Akira looks at Goro and beams. It’s genuine, definitely, and is a bit out of place for the conversation, but he can’t help himself. The sunlight lays itself across Goro’s hair and the side of his face in such a gentle manner; it softens his expression and unsharpens the smile he gives so readily when he’s hiding something. Akira’s seen it before, that smile—when he first introduced Goro to Ryuji and Ann. It was jagged and pointy and strange all at the same time.

He supposes he’s probably seen it early on in the semester too, but at the time, Akira must have assumed that was his normal smile. Akira has many faces; he acts somewhat differently depending on the person he talks to because he’s picked up how certain people respond to certain things. Goro, however, has many more faces—many faces all contributing to one pristine image.

Akira knows that he isn’t _really_ that image. Of course, Goro is still polite and somewhat cordial around Akira, but to so much of a lesser extent. His shoulders are less square, they slouch and relax a bit more, his face is animated in a natural way and so on. It’s clear he hasn’t had much opportunity to be so comfortable with someone before because every now and then he’ll apologize for something silly and small.

“I’ll think about it,” Goro finally says as they turn to corner to the cafe. Akira hums in response, recognizing from Goro’s tone that he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, and hold open the door for him.

Ryuji and Ann are already waiting for them at a corner table where they usually sit. They wave their hands frantically, as if the cafe were the size of a warehouse and not a three door garage.

Akira and Goro order drinks and join them.

—

Later in the evening, once they’ve returned to the dorm, Akira finally begins to pack.

He doesn’t need to pack that much, truthfully. When he spent a year living in the attic in high school all his belongings were delivered in a single cardboard box. If he’s able to do that, he can work with one suitcase as well.

Besides, it’s not like he needs to bring home the bedsheets or anything like that. He’s already packed away a generous amount of clothes and his toothpaste and toothbrush and so on. Considering that he’s got extras of everything he needs back at the cafe, there’s no reason to bring too much with him because it’s just extra weight.

He stands with his hands on his hips and surveys his room. It’s much cleaner now, but he can’t really pat himself on the back considering it’s really only been condensed into a suitcase.

Tomorrow at nine in the morning Akira takes the train home. It’s a three hour ride, which isn’t that bad, all things considered. He figures he’ll just sleep on the way.

There’s a knock on his door.

“You can come in,” he says, shuffling around a few pieces of paper on his desk to give the illusion of being productive.

Goro opens the door, stares at Akira’s room. “So clean,” he observes. “This is unusual.”

“Don’t make fun of me for trying,” Akira says, putting his hands on his hips.

“I’m not making fun.” Goro sits down on Akira’s bed and folds his hands in his lap. He’s in red sweatpants (Akira’s) and a white t-shirt (also Akira’s) and it makes him have an entirely different aura; one Akira can’t quite put his finger on.

“I’ve made up my mind,” he says suddenly. “I’d like to go home with you, if you’re sure it’s all right.”

Akira forces himself to not do a double take. He didn’t think Goro was going to say that so bluntly and without warning beforehand. Nevertheless, he’s happy he decided to come along. “I’m positive that it’s all right,” he says.

A very rare type of smile spreads across Goro’s face. It makes Akira want to kiss him, and so he does, taking a seat next to him in the process.

Goro hums. “I see you’ve taken my advice and use chapstick now,” he says, pulling himself onto Akira’s lap and then resting his head on his shoulder.

“It’s one of yours that I found lying around.”

“Ah,” Goro mumbles. “I thought it tasted familiar.”

Orange light shifts itself through the window, slowly covering the wall and floor. Akira likes it when the sun sets later; not because it gives him more daylight, but also because there’s something warm about the sky being light when it’s still eveningtime. He tells this to Goro, who is half sleeping on his shoulder. Akira can feel Goro’s mouth smile against his skin.

“You still have to pack,” he says quietly, reaching up to run his hand through Goro’s hair. It’s smooth, it smells like flowers, it catches light so nicely.

“I did before I came in here,” Goro says. His voice is weighed with sleepiness.

Despite everything, Goro has continued the terrible habit of staying up extremely late and then waking up early all the way to the end of the semester. Not even on Sunday does he allow himself to sleep in, as he “devotes that day to doing chores” even though he usually finishes everything by noon.

Akira doesn’t think he’s ever seen him nap, either.

 _You’re going to go senile if you keep depriving yourself of sleep_ , he had said a few days ago, to which Goro responded by dropping his egg into Akira’s glass of water. He apologized later with a very generous kiss and the conversation was forgotten.

“...Hello?” A voice cuts through Akira’s memories and he blinks once, twice, then looks at Goro.

“Sorry. I was thinking about you,” Akira says as explanation.

“Oh.” Goro turns his head away, obviously red. He climbs off of Akira’s lap and situates himself on the bed, laying on his side as he always does. “I’m going to sleep,” he then proclaims. “You really do have better luck than me. Your bed is so much more comfortable than mine.”

“You chose your room first. Also—I think you just like sleeping with me.”

Goro covers his face with the pillow. “You have more body heat than me,” he mumbles.

“Of course I do.”

“You do,” Goro insists. “I’m sleeping now so you can’t embarrass me any further.”

Akira forgoes packing and climbs in next to him.

 

**AUGUST 2**

“It’s hot,” Ryuji groans. He’s laying on the table in Akira’s attic, arms and legs spread out like a starfish.

“You’re definitely making sweat stains on Akira’s table,” Ann says, whacking his leg with the magazine she’s reading. On impact he flinches and shoots upward to a seated position, proceeding to look at the table.

“There’s no sweat stains.” His voice is despondent and he lays back down.

This has been the pattern for a few weeks. At first, the summer seemed to be promisingly temperate; Akira and Goro slept more or less comfortably at night without the help of an air conditioner. Once the last week of July hit, though, it became almost immediately hotter. Akira has lived through plenty of heat waves in his lifetime, but none are the terrible caliber of the one this year.

In fact, the day that it started, he woke up covered in so much sweat he was afraid something had happened to him. Goro was sweaty, too; it seemed he had woken up in the middle of the night and thrown the blanket onto the floor in a stupid looking heap.

From there on the same thing happened. They woke up sweaty and grumbly.

But—it’s all right. It isn’t the complete end of the world. Although there hasn’t been any sign of the heat wave ending just yet, they’ve managed thus far and will continue to do so.

Akira has been meaning to buy a fan from the second-hand store around the corner for a few days now, and seeing Ryuji so dramatically exhausted reminds him of this.

Of course, he isn’t going to make Ryuji buy that.

Beside him, Goro is fanning himself with a book. Clearly it’s not very effective, as he’s leaning back against the wall, eyes closed and mouth slightly parted, looking as miserable and overheated as he had when he wasn’t fanning himself.

Akira swallows. He stares at Goro’s neck.

“Ann,” he says suddenly, “could you, um—”

“Could I what?” She brings her knee up.

“—buy popsicles or something? With Ryuji.” He makes his best _please_ face and hopes she understands.

And by the looks of it she does. Ann stands and pulls at Ryuji’s wrist. “Sure, Akira,” she says kindly, promptly leading herself and Ryuji out, pulling at his wrist as she takes him down the stairs.

A beat of silence passes once they leave. Goro continues to fan himself in this silence, either unaware that Ann and Ryuji have left or pretending that he is unaware. He does this a lot—feigning ignorance—just to be funny, or something.

Since the semester has ended, Goro has become much more open with both Akira as well as Akira’s friends. He jokes more, he is less nervous to laugh, he lets himself be honest. Most importantly he sleeps an almost ridiculous amount, usually well into late morning and occasionally the afternoon despite the heat.

Akira too has changed—he talks more, now; he doesn’t let his desire to help others overrule his own well being. This was especially a problem he had in high school. In fact, this trait is debatably what got him arrested.

But that’s a thought for another time.

“You look sweaty,” Akira says to Goro, reaching up to touch his hair. “Want me to lick it away? I’ll do anything you want.”

“Haha, very funny,” Goro replies with a laugh. “Although I’ll have to respectfully decline this time. Ann and Ryuji won’t be gone too long and I know how much you like to work me up.” He drops the book on the bed and huffs. “Valiant try, though.”

Akira stretches his arms out in order to very sneakily cup Goro’s cheek. He shifts his body, moving onto his knees with his legs tucked underneath himself. “Your cheeks get so pink during the summer,” he says simply, and then kisses Goro on the mouth. He tastes like the cream soda they had earlier on his tongue.

Once again Akira adjusts his position. He pulls away from Goro and instead scoots downward a bit so he can lay his head on Goro’s lap.

“I’m sure you’re getting a very flattering angle of me down there,” Goro says, looking down.

“It is flattering,” Akira says all-too-earnestly. “You look flustered.”

Goro is looking the other way now, arms folded across his chest in a huff. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, it’s endearing.” Pause. “I wish they’d hurry up with the popsicles.”

“Weren’t you initially hoping that they would take a while to come back?”

“I was, but I’m not any more. I’m hungry and it’s hot.”

Goro unfolds him arms and puts one by his side; he runs his fingers through Akira’s hair with the other, which is surprising, considering how sweaty he is. Perhaps Goro doesn’t mind, though—his hair is longer and therefore he must be used to it. “I hate to tell you, but a popsicle won’t make you any less hungry,” Goro says matter-of-factly. “The average popsicle has zero grams of protein.”

Akira responds with an _mmmm._

“Popsicles primarily contain carbohydrates, sugars, and sometimes iron, but not very often, because iron is hemoglobin based.” He looks down at Akira’s whose eyes are shut. “Am I boring you?”

“Huh?” Akira opens his eyes. “No, not boring me. I was listening. Popsicles have iron in them but only sometimes. You just have—uh. You have really nice hands. I wanted to close my eyes.”

Goro covers his face with his palms.

 _So easily embarrassed,_ Akira thinks. Moreso than the average person, at least, in his experience. Gentle things like a touch to his back or shoulder oftentimes render Goro frazzled and in stuttered sentences.

Akira reaches up and moves away Goro’s hands, gripping by the wrist and pulling them back down. “Hey,” he says so-softly, “I want to see your pretty face. Don’t worry about blushing.”

“I’m not blushing,” Goro says immediately. It’s a terrible lie. “And I’m not worried.”

“All right, whatever you say.” Akira closes his eyes again. The attic is so quiet when it’s just the two of them, even in conversation. It’s only them and the gossip of cicadas outside the window, speaking frantically to one another.

Akira’s brain is fuzzy. Goro’s hands are so nice, petting him, playing with his hair; he wants to curl up like a cat and never have to do anything ever again and instead simply stay here, even in the heat and sweatiness and everything. It’s comfortable. He’s comfortable. He’s happy.

The door jingles downstairs.

“We’re back!” Ann shouts. “We’re, uh, coming upstairs now!”

Akira shoots upwards from the position he’s in, nearly smacking his head against Goro’s, who seems to be nearly asleep. They go back to their original spots, sitting side by side. Goro looks at his phone for posterity’s sake when Ann and Ryuji come upstairs.

“We didn’t know which kinds you wanted so we got a bunch,” Ryuji says, pulling out three boxes of popsicles from a plastic bag. Even from a distance Akira can tell that they’re already wet with condensation.

“They’re probably already starting to melt,” Akira says, but accepts one from Ann anyway. He pinches it through the wrapping—it doesn’t _seem_ melted. He looks at Goro. “Guess the flavor.”  
“Sure. Strawberry. Mine’s orange.” Goro rips his open, and sure enough, it is orange. Akira’s, however, is grape.

“That’s still pretty good,” Akira says, waving his popsicle.

“Well, I used to be a detective in high school. I was on television a few times.”

Akira blinks once, twice. “Really?” he asks, although he isn’t sure why he’s so surprised. The whole _law student_ thing makes sense considering this. “What does being a detective have to do with a lucky guess, though?”

“It has nothing to do with it,” Goro says, and he kisses Akira on the cheek, so soft and chaste and promising.

Akira kisses him back.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> sorry the end is so cheesy lol
> 
> i’m on twitter @ bloomedvillain!


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